PRICES!! Up & Up we GO!

And just when you thought it couldn't get worse ...... Looks like another round of rising prices, AND another good reason to give up using unnecessary paper products. Get your coupons together....it's time to stock up on TP and underwear!

And what we CAN afford has SHRUNK! I was fuming last night because I opened a package of straws and they had cut off some length. Well, it's hardly worth the treat for the kids when they have to fish their straw out of the bottle.

Or that the bread slices have gotten thinner and the loaves shorter...or that I opened a can of coffee and it was just above half full....or...or... I think I'm going to burst a blood vessel here! lol

It seems like it's never going to end these increase of prices! Also, it doesn't help that we are working on a skeleton crew at work and at the present I am working part time. Until our census where I work goes up I will be scrimping more! This stinks!

I know I see it here, every week the grocery store prices get higher and higher. Our thrift stores have gone up too, but nothing like how Goodwill has raised their prices out here.

I have to wonder where all this is leading. Since our economy is based on consumerism it makes we wonder at the job market. Think about it, every job sells a product, service, an idea or concept just about. If the prices continue to rise and more and more people (like us) continue to find ways to be more self sufficient. Learning how to sew, grow and can our own food, make our soap, detergent, cleaning supplies, sew, get rid of our cars (or become a 1 car family) and start walking or riding our bikes, raising livestock or hunting, reducing our energy usage (when my Aunt lived in GA she had he electric bill down to $17 a month!!!!) That means we are consuming far less of everything. On one hand you find yourself saying, well that's great! less stress on the earth, but what does that equate too? What does that mean for the American worker? Or the global economy even? We know first hand what it means, my DH has been laid off from his job coming up on 4 years now. Of course there is the argument that we are the casualties of war, an economic war. Expendable casualties. But what does that mean for everyone else? If people can't buy what they need due to prices rising, so they seek out ways to consume less, will we continue to see more and more businesses closing? Factories folding? Jobs lost or jobs at a greatly reduced pay check?

One of my DH's friends got a trade for $45,000. He's just been able to get a job in the workforce at almost poverty level wages. He has a mortgage, and now $45,000 in student loans and can't for the life of him see how he can pay he mortgage and his student loans on his meager pay. Everyone kept saying schools the answer, reeducate. But all those people out our way who got medically certified (because that's where they say the jobs are) are not working in the schooled profession (or lots of them) they are working places like McDonalds because they pay better.

Something's very off here, prices rising. Jobs that don't make enough to pay back your loans. I shudder to think where this all is leading, and wondering when the dust will settle from this. It feels like one massive earthquake that's been happening for years, no reprieve.

I was expecting this. Here in Europe we've been hearing for years about how the Euro currency is excessively valuable against the US dollar because the US just keeps printing more and more money and pushing it into the US economy. Of course when you just print money like there's no tomorrow, and your currency has lost value on the international currency market, your domestic prices are going to go way up. Anything that your manufacturers are purchasing from oversees, they're paying for in US dollars, but those dollars don't go as far as they used to. They have to raise your prices to cover the difference. That's how inflation works, and that's why printing money is a really weird strategy that has never made any sense to me.

I have been stocking up on paper products for a long time. But am back to searching for a "good price" on TP. Might have to
'adjust' on the other, when the supply runs out. No
adjusting, for me, on TP. That phone book I just got seems
a little 'rough' for my taste!!

I hadn't bought dog food in months since I have just two little guys and buy a large bag.......went yesterday and almost had
a coronary at the price increase!!